


The Princess and the Rat

by MiskatonicWhaler



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Fluff and Humor, Gen, One Shot Collection, The Pendletwins, The Ratsider
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:09:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2189439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiskatonicWhaler/pseuds/MiskatonicWhaler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poor Emily Kaldwin. Forced to witness her mother's murder, then held captive for more than six months in a plague-stricken pleasure house by the famously corrupt Pendleton twins...</p><p>And still surprisingly spunky by the time Corvo finds her? It's almost as if someone - or something - has been watching out for her all this time.</p><p>A saga in which the Outsider walks among us... just not always on two feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Unfortunate Pet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: post-game (Low Chaos)  
> Location: Dunwall Tower

Mistress Anna, Chief Housekeeper of the royal suites in Dunwall Tower, was no stranger to sights that would have left the streets buzzing with gossip – from an unstable lord regent who inspected the halls for secret spy-holes on his hands and knees in the middle of the night, to an empress who saw fit to enjoy very _different,_ yet no less unseemly activities with her lord protector under the cover of darkness.

But Empress Jessamine had been laid to her eternal rest while Hiram Burrows rotted in a Coldridge cell, and Mistress Anna had scarcely a thought for either of them, since her attentions were now focused entirely on _dear_ sweet Emily, the child-empress, and her retainers. Oh, but of all the things Anna had seen and heard during her long years of service in the Tower…

Bravely, she put on her most neutral expression and tightened her arms around the bundle of fresh linen sheets as she inevitably approached the tall double-doors to Her Majesty’s chamber, giving a polite knock. Gripping the familiar door handle like a lifeline, she all but shoved open the portal and then stared determinedly downward as she entered the room.

Emily wasn’t in her bed, of course. Anna had known this was probable. Ever since the girl had insisted on taking in that _horrible_ … Well, who was Anna to argue with Her Ladyship’s whimsy. In fact, Anna was a firm believer that children _ought_ to have pets – it instilled a certain level of responsibility in them, as she saw it. But _really,_ why did it have to be that – that disgusting _vermin?_

Of course, if Anna were honest with herself, she would have to admit that her aversion to Emily’s new pet ran a little deeper than the unfortunate choice of species… But that would mean accepting certain fundamental truths about the universe that the housekeeper was not quite ready to acknowledge.

So instead, she bustled around the room with her best approximation of good cheer, throwing open the curtains, changing the bed sheets, laying out a fresh outfit from the wardrobe, and when she could put it off no longer, cleaning out the vermin’s empty cage, an admittedly pretty thing of gold wire – all the while steadfastly ignoring the muffled giggles from overhead.

When her tasks were finished, she gathered up the laundry and strode from the room, still staring resolutely at the floor as she drew the doors shut behind her. She immediately resumed such a swift pace down the hallway that she nearly bowled over the Lord Protector, dropping her armload with a frightened squeak as they collided.

“My apologies, Anna,” the man offered kindly, catching most of the laundry and handing it back to her so he could pick up the remaining linens. “Is Emily finished getting ready, then? Callista will be livid if she’s late to her lessons one more time, and it will probably mean my head…” he smiled wryly.

The housekeeper would not meet his eyes. “My lord, she – I – Her Ladyship could not be reached,” Anna mumbled. Corvo’s eyes widened.

“What? She’s not in her room?” His whole demeanor had suddenly changed, as if he were about to bolt through the double-doors behind Anna.

“Oh – n-no sir, she’s… Her Ladyship is fine. In her room. Couldn’t reach her. I… I have to go.” The housekeeper seemed almost ready to cry. Lowering her head, she pushed past Corvo and went on her way, still muttering things that the Lord Protector couldn’t quite catch, but which sounded suspiciously like the Seven Strictures.

Corvo had known the housekeeper for many years and trusted her well enough, but a sense of unease was fast growing inside him. Senses on full alert, he practically sprinted down the hall, prepared for anything as he threw open the double-doors.

“Emily?”

Well, maybe not _anything_.

His royal charge was not in her bed. Nor was she coloring at her desk, nor anywhere at all on the floor. Instead, his gaze was drawn upward.

Emily Kaldwin, newly crowned Empress of the Four Isles, seemed to be having the time of her life floating through the air near the ceiling of her bedchamber, pushing off the walls and making swimming motions to propel herself faster.

“Look Corvo! I’m flying!” she shrieked, grinning down at him.

Also floating just overhead was Emily’s new pet, a sleek white rat which Piero had proclaimed to be completely free of infection, and which the young empress had refused to hear any argument against keeping. Now that Corvo had the opportunity to take a good hard look at the creature, he was fast coming to regret his easy indulgence of Emily’s whim.

Unnaturally black eyes seemed somehow to be laughing at him as the rat hovered upside down in the middle of the room. _Daring_ him to protest. Dark tendrils of shadow flickered in the creature’s wake as it drifted aimlessly. The back of Corvo’s left hand burned slightly.

That cheeky _bastard_.

Corvo closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them again, nothing had changed. Damn.

He backed slowly and calmly out of the room, shutting the doors softly. Emily was obviously enjoying herself, at least.

They were going to have a very _long_ chat later, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story will be a collection of one-shots centered around the adventures of Emily and the "Ratsider." They will be posted in the order that they are written, NOT chronological order - just a heads up!


	2. Something's Not Right...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: just after Emily's abduction  
> Location: The end of all things. And the beginning.  
> **This chapter is in first-person POV**

It is amusing, and rather pathetic, just how little attention they pay to the child, at the start. Two nobles, whose power rests in the continued good-standing of their family name, are given the incredible task of hiding away the heir to the imperial throne, and what do they do? Bring her to the most obvious House of Secrets in the city and leave her to roam about with practically no supervision, trusting to the vague notion that Madame Prudence and her ladies will keep an eye on the girl while Morgan and Custis carry on as if nothing in the world concerns them, save for each other.

Amusing? More like disgustingly predictable, really.

It is to the surprise of no one worth mentioning, then, when Emily Kaldwin nearly manages to escape on her very first try, not a month into her capture.

The child is certainly clever; it is in her blood – both lines. But the ease with which she explores the twisted velvet halls of the Golden Cat is more a testament to her captors’ imbecilic laziness, and it is sheer luck one night when she stumbles upon the perfect route for a secret escape, only to find the door locked, and her hopes temporarily thwarted.

(Bad luck or good is a matter of perspective; undoubtedly the hungry weepers pining in the shadows beyond the door that night consider it poor fortune indeed.)

She is unseen or ignored by most of the courtesans, who assume she is some cousin of those twins and thus an annoyance to be endured for the sake of coin. As for Morgan and Custis… they consider themselves far cleverer than other men, let alone girls, and waste little thought on the trembling child they are sure still hides in some corner, placated with sweets and stories.

So when the Madame informs them that young Emily was found trying to pick the lock on the VIP entrance, and may even have succeeded given more time, and that something really ought to be done about the irksome child…?

Well. It appears that the Lords Pendleton are not quite as insightful as they believe, at least where little brats are concerned – a most sour revelation for the pair. However, this does not prevent Custis in particular from devising a few _creative_ ideas to ensure that the girl never dares venture out of place again.

 _(Creative_ to the Pendletons. I have been around a very long time, and I have witnessed _creativity_ that would haunt even Custis’ dreams.)

Now, this situation begins to pose a most curious conundrum, does it not? Events in Dunwall have only just started gathering momentum – an old conspiracy has seen the death of an empress, while a newer, much more intriguing plot is even now taking shape in the hearts and minds of a few… and all the while, the man upon whom it all hinges sits in a prison cell, waiting patiently for his chance to die. But somewhere inside him, a flame still burns – kept alive by the singular hope that a child he loves dearly is still out there somewhere, safe and sound, waiting for him to return.

A child who, if Morgan and Custis and the others are left to their own devices, will not be the same child that Corvo remembers, if and when he finally comes for her… if she survives at all. It does not take a glimpse of the future to understand that _that_ would simply be one grief too many for Corvo Attano.

And that future, I am well aware, would be _most_ uninteresting.

Madame Prudence has a point, then. Something will have to be done about these irksome children at the Golden Cat, lest they nullify the game before it has begun…


	3. Crayons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: a few weeks after Emily is kidnapped; follows "Something's Not Right..."  
> Location: the Golden Cat

“Ugh! Do these people really _not_ know what a box of crayons looks like?”

Emily kicked at the table leg as hard as she dared – the scant furniture in the rooms upstairs was old and rickety, a lot like the Madame, and something told her that she wouldn’t be getting a new table if this one collapsed.

It wasn’t as if she expected to have the sort of niceties that she had always enjoyed in Dunwall Tower, in her old life. This place was part of what adults called “The Real World,” where you had to fight for your bread and butter and where card games were played for money, not fun, which made them Serious Business. Life here was really difficult and exciting and Emily _understood_ that boxes of sharpened wax in all the colors of the prism were probably not in huge demand in the markets right now, especially with the plague.

But that didn’t make them impossible to find, not by a long shot, and considering that crayons had been her one and only request when the Madame had asked if there was anything she would like to have…

They hadn’t even _tried_ , in Emily’s opinion. Someone had scrounged up some old pieces of charcoal, which they gave her along with a stack of paper flyers, wrinkled and torn and weathered advertisements for products like Dabokva’s Whale Meat in Tomato Sauce, A Product of Tyvia, which explained a lot because Mr. Sokolov always did eat weird foods like that when he was in the Tower.

At least most of the flyers were plain white on the back, and a few of them were even in quite good condition (and the rest were better than nothing, she supposed). But the material was not meant for charcoal drawing, she quickly discovered, as her etchings smeared and smudged right off the paper and usually ended up getting all over herself more than the flyers.

It was entirely ridiculous, and just one more bit of proof that Madame Prudence really didn’t give a rat’s arse (one of her many new favorite expressions) about her. Emily was an annoyance, something that got in the way of the Madame’s real work, something to be _put up with_.

She felt her frustration with the charcoal pieces quickly welling into something deeper, a strange weight in her stomach, a knot in the back of her throat, and she kicked at the table leg again, harder, receiving a pitiful creak in protest.

“It’s not like I _asked_ those stupid men to bring me here!” she informed the crimson drapery which covered the wall behind the table.

Of course there was no one to answer. No warm glance or gentle reassurances, no protective embrace. Her words simply hung there, as always, in the empty space where no one else could ever hear them, or care to.

Her vision blurred and a drop of moisture slid down her cheek, despite her fervent resistance.

The salty droplet trailed all the way down to the tip of her chin and then broke away, at which point Emily assumed that it fell to the floor or perhaps landed somewhere on her white coat.

It certainly _should_ have done so, but did not. Instead, against all the known laws of natural philosophy, the droplet traveled straight upward until it landed with a tiny splash on the ceiling, completely unnoticed by a child too busy fighting back her tears – she would not cry here, not in this place the scary brothers had dragged her to. Not any more.

She fought back the lump in her throat until her eyes were dry and her breathing returned to a calmer state, and then, because there was still nothing better to do, she picked up a charcoal stub with a sigh, ready to attempt another drawing. The boring little room they kept her in following her escape attempt _really_ needed some new artwork so that she wouldn’t have to stare all day at the horrible grungy wallpaper, which was probably even older than the Madame, but that would have to make it _pretty_ old so she wasn’t sure.

But something nudged at her ankle just as she was about to press charcoal to paper, causing her to jump with a squeal of surprise and leave a thick streak of jagged black across the blank page she had intended to draw on.

Something small and cold had pressed purposefully against her left ankle, just for a moment. Emily stood up quickly, still clutching the charcoal stub in one fist, and looked around to see what the thing had been. She did not have to look far.

A rat, with fur even whiter than her own garments when they were freshly laundered, sat on its haunches a few feet away, staring back up at her with eyes like the solid streak of black that now marred her paper. Some part of Emily’s mind found itself vaguely unsettled by those eyes, as if there might be something… different about this rat, compared to other white rats she had seen, something different about the eyes… It was a small thing, she just couldn’t remember.

What mattered was that this was a rat, and it was sitting brazenly in _her_ room.

“Ew! Go away!” she shouted, taking a step forward to intimidate the creature. A single rat was nothing to be afraid of, she was certain, not as long as she drank her full portion of elixir each day.

Once upon a time, she had even found the rodents to be rather cute – but that was before the rat plague had swept away half the city, and Corvo had been made to travel in search of help, and had barely returned only for their entire world to be irreparably shattered in a span of seconds.

No, the empress-to-be was no longer especially fond of rats.

 _This_ rat gave a startled squeak and scampered aside as Emily aimed a kick at the spot where it had been sitting, a kick that was admittedly even gentler than when she had attacked the table leg, because there was just something kind of sad about trying to kick a small furry white animal, even if it was a disease-carrying vermin.

The white-furred creature did not seem to take the hint, however. It merely sat in its new spot and watched her, chittering softly. The dim light of the room’s single lantern seemed to cast strange flickering shadows around its body.

Emily glared down at it. “Leave me alone, you stupid rat!” she huffed, getting more upset when it only tilted its head to one side inquisitively. “I just want to have some space to myself and you can’t even do that much! Madame Prudence doesn’t even know what proper crayons are, can anybody in this stupid place do _anything_ right? No! Of course not, that would be way too simple!”

She threw up her hands in disgust and leaned back against the wall hard enough to cause a thud. It felt oddly freeing to rant at the rat, she realized as she crossed her arms. Having someone to rant to, even a rat, was… nice.

The rat looked up at her with its head still tilted for several moments, as if considering her words. Emily held back a snicker. She still did not like rats, but this one acted so silly that it was almost cute. Almost.

Suddenly the rat straightened, standing once more on all four paws. Emily stood up straighter as well, preparing to throw the charcoal piece if it came at her, but the rat merely circled in place a couple times before turning and dashing toward the door at the other end of the room, slipping easily beneath the edge of the door into the hallway beyond.

Emily sighed in relief to have the room to herself once more. But now that the pest was gone, the silence of the empty room with its ugly drab wallpaper and garish drapery seemed to weigh just a bit more heavily around her. She opened her hand, and found that the charcoal stub had crushed and stained her fingers black. _Great_. She had nothing to wipe it off with either – her clothes were out of the question, of course.

*~*~*~*~*

Quite some time later found Emily still trying to get black ash off her hand without managing to spoil her outfit. A crumpled flyer had only served to complicate matters by smudging the stuff all over her hand and part of her arm, and it had gotten on her left hand as well now. She had finally started rubbing her hand against the wallpaper, which couldn’t be much worse than it already was and actually was proving somewhat effective at wiping the black dust off.

She had just come to a point where enough charcoal had been removed that she no longer had to worry about accidentally staining her clothes, when a telltale squeak sounded from behind the closed door. Emily whirled around in time to see the white rat slip under the door again into her room, this time with a small object clutched carefully between its teeth.

“What in the Void…” she wondered aloud as the rat made its way over to her, a bit off-balance due to the object it carried. It approached her slowly, but this time she made no move to scare it away, more curious about what it was doing.

When the rat arrived in front of her, it deposited the small cylindrical object, then turned and scampered quickly back toward the door. As it disappeared into the hallway Emily bent down to pick up the small object, which closer examination soon revealed to be a small paper tube of lipstick – a commodity which she realized must have belonged to the ladies downstairs.

This time, she was the one tilting her head in confusion as the rat returned carrying a second tube of lipstick, then ran back into the hallway for another, and another, piling them at her feet continuously. Finally, it returned carrying a bundle of fine brushes, the sort that were used to apply the make-up, depositing them neatly in front of the paper tubes. Then the rat sat back, looking up at her with a glimmer of expression – it almost appeared amused.

“But what am I to do with all these?” she asked, utterly bewildered.

The rat darted over to stand next to her stack of unused flyers, taking hold of the corner of one with its teeth, then dragged the flyer back to the pile of lipstick tubes, before turning its gaze pointedly back to her.

She stared at the flyer, an impossible idea taking shape in her mind. “Am I… supposed to use all these for painting?”

The rat nudged at the pile of brushes with its pink nose, chittering.

Emily felt a swirl of confused excitement blossoming within her. She knelt down and took one of the brushes, coating it liberally with thick color from the paper tube in her hand, and proceeded to paint a scarlet flower on the blank side of the flyer with a precision – not to mention vibrancy – that had been beyond impossible with the charcoal pieces.

Emily laughed in sheer delight. “It’s wonderful!” she told the rat, which was already preening as if to congratulate itself. Then she hesitated as something else occurred to her. “Too bad they’re probably all pink or red…”

The white rat gave a squeak of protest, nudging at one the tubes until it rolled away from the pile and into her foot. She picked up the new tube and observed its contents, noting in surprise that this one contained a vivid green hue.

Startled by this revelation, she began checking all of the paper tubes that the rat had brought her, finding bright yellow, orange, pink, purple, and several shades of blue…

Had Dunwall fashion really changed this drastically in the short time since she had been brought to the Golden Cat?

Emily certainly hoped so.

But for now, she was more than content to focus on gathering up her new paints and hiding them away in her favorite corner, before they could be seen – and taken away – by the Madame or anyone else who might come to check on her. As she worked, she could not help but grin conspiratorially at her new friend, the odd white rat who, it was turning out, might not be such bad company as she had first believed.


	4. Captivity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: follows "Crayons"  
> Location: the Golden Cat

_“Girl!”_

The harsh call reverberated through the thin walls of the Golden Cat’s top floor, the sparsely furnished dorms where the greatest secret in the empire had been stashed away.

The girl in question was currently curled up on the floor in her favorite corner of her little room, snoring lightly, a vibrant drawing of Kaldwin’s Bridge lying half-finished next to her head. She roused at the sound of the angry man’s voice, however, a wave of dread pouring through her like icy water. It was not a voice that she had heard often before, but she knew all too well who it belonged to: one of the toad-faced twins with the wavy hair, who had laughed at her as they tossed her at the Madame’s feet.

Emily scrambled to her feet, fists clenched, listening to the footsteps clomping unsteadily up the stairs and down the hallway.

Suddenly the door was being shoved open without so much as a knock, and the man barged into the room.

“You there!” he shouted, rather unnecessarily, when his glower landed on the room’s sole occupant. It was indeed one of the twins – the one who favored cream-colored suits and was maybe, _maybe_ just a hair shorter than his brother… or it might have been something in his bearing, the way his shoulders hunched ever so slightly when they stood near each other, the sort of habit that a man was never consciously aware of.

Emily gave the intruder her best defiant glare and stood her ground, trying to imitate her mother’s regal posture and calm demeanor, although being regal under pressure was turning out to be much harder than Jessamine had made it look. “I _have_ a name, you know.”

The man sneered. “Entitled little brat, aren’t you?” he snapped. “Of course I know who you are. Am I to go announcing to all of Dunwall that our precious tyrant-in-waiting is holed up here in the attic of a brothel, then? Ah yes, I’m sure that will do _wonders_ for keeping us in the Lord Regent’s favor.”

He sighed wearily, shaking his head. “As if my brother and I don’t already do more than enough for that old weasel to keep him indebted to his grave and beyond. Never mind that without us, he’d have all the influence in Parliament of a bastard son of a river krust, oh no, but it’s got to be _us_ who are expected to take care of the girl, as if we don’t have more _important_ matters to tend to than babysitting some spoiled princess…”

His gaze refocused on Emily then, and the toad-faced man began advancing toward her until he was close enough to snatch at her wrist. His fingers clamped around her arm so tightly that it hurt.

“Come along, _girl_ ,” he ordered, and she wrinkled her nose against the smell of his breath, heavy with the tang of whiskey. He dragged her along in his wake as he moved back toward the hallway, hardly giving her a chance to keep up with his longer strides.

“Where – where are we going?” she managed to stammer out as the man led a swift pace, down the hall to the top of the stairwell.

He glanced at her sidelong – Emily was reminded of a hagfish swiveling its head to locate prey. “Madame Prudence has informed us that you have not been behaving yourself as befits someone of your… station. Custis and I thought it best to give you a little _reminder,”_ his lips pulled into a smile that was downright nasty, “of all that you have to be grateful for here at the Golden Cat, instead of running off into the night with the weepers and the rats and the street gangs…”

By now they had begun descending the stairs, although the man slowed their pace slightly as he picked his footing on the narrow steps.

“… You know, I bet I’d still be better off with the weepers,” Emily muttered, just for spite, _knowing_ that she should have held her tongue but unable to resist.

“Is that so?” the man demanded icily, turning once more to glare at her. “And what would your dear mother have to say about that, hmm? To think that she died protecting her _precious_ daughter, only for the ungrateful brat to have no regard for her own personal safety… How… _disappointed_ Her Majesty would be…” He shook his head as if deeply saddened by this state of affairs.

To her surprise, Emily felt overcome by a sudden sharp anger. “You – _don’t you talk about Mother!”_

His grip around her wrist tightened until she let out a gasp of pain. “I will talk about whomever and whatever I wish, _girl,”_ he practically hissed, resuming his too-fast pace down the stairs. “You still do not seem to understand your role here – clearly a deficiency on the Madame’s part, I fail to understand what in the Void she hopes to accomplishhh _arrrghdamnRATS_ –”

At some point during the man’s garbled speech, Emily found herself suddenly freed of his vice-like grip – then for the next few seconds, all she saw was a cream-colored blur as the man went toppling head-first down the remaining stairs, until he landed with a heavy _thud_ on the floor below.

Unfortunately he was still alive, if the very drawn-out _“owww”_ was any indication.

Emily stood frozen for a moment in confusion at what had just occurred. It appeared that the man had somehow… tripped… had he missed a step?

A flash of white moved across her vision, near the bottom of the stairs, just a couple yards below where she stood. It vanished nearly as soon as she saw it into the shadows at the edge of the room, but she was almost certain – it had been a rather familiar-looking…

“Fucking rats!” the man snarled, finally picking himself up gingerly from the floor. “I thought they said they fucking cleaned the goddamned place! … Well? What are you goggling at, girl? _Get down here!”_

Emily did as instructed, honestly a bit afraid of the alternative at the moment… although it was very hard to fight back her snicker as the man began hobbling down the hallway, clearly in pain. At least it was much easier to keep up with his stride, now.

He led them to a room that Emily had not been to before – some kind of sitting room behind a closed door. An unlit fireplace shadowed the right wall, while against the left wall stood a small decorative table, some shelves and other odds-and-ends. In the middle of the room, reclining on an expensive-looking sofa was the dark-suited counterpart of the first man. He raised his eyebrows as they entered.

“Ah, Morgan, what took you so long?” the dark-suited man greeted his brother. “I was beginning to wonder if the fool girl had wandered off again…” His voice, though very like Morgan’s, was somehow lower in tone, quieter, more… calculated. His stare landed on Emily just for a moment, and she felt an inexplicable sense of relief when his eyes returned to his brother.

“Yes, well,” Morgan began brushing invisible specks of dust from his cream-colored sleeve, “it appears that this fine establishment is not as well-kept as that old hag would have us believe. I was nearly swarmed by vermin on the stairs…” His brother immediately sat up straighter in concern, and he patted the air in a placating gesture. “No, no, dear Custis, I’m fine, of course… But, honestly! The shit we are meant to put up with! I wonder what in blazes we’re paying her good coin for, is what I’d like to know, if she can’t even scrub the place down once in a bloody while…”

“Quite agreed, dear brother,” Custis replied, although the corners of his lips had twitched into the faintest semblance of a smile as he observed his twin’s ire. “One would _hope_ that high-profile guests such as ourselves would encourage the staff to make a bit of an effort… But I’m afraid we are behaving rather rudely, are we not, Morgan? There is a lady present, and she has yet to receive a proper introduction.”

Emily tried not to fidget when the matching sunken stares turned to regard her once more.

“Ahem. My apologies, Your Ladyship. Brother, may I present to you our long-lost cousin, Emily Fairfax, newly orphaned due to the plague but delivered safely into our custodianship here at the Golden Cat.”

Emily squinted her eyes at Morgan, wondering just how hard he had hit his head. “Um, no offense mister, but that’s not my name and I don’t have any cousins as ugly as you.”

Morgan sighed heavily. “Outsider’s eyes, didn’t they ever teach you _anything_ about politics in that tower? Rest assured, we know very wellwho you are… and you’d best hope no one _else_ finds out, or you _will_ regret it.”

“Allow me to clarify,” Custis broke in, with a smile that was _probably_ meant to be reassuring. “Now, I understand that Madame Prudence has not told you very much since your arrival here, so it has been a confusing time for you. But try to understand, my dear – we brought you to the Golden Cat for your own protection, the same reason that we now must give you a false identity, in case anyone should notice you. Can you think of why that is?”

Emily blinked in confusion. These men had never tried to help her, they had taken her away! “You… you’re lying! You were with those men who – killed Mother – that means you’re the bad guys too!”

Custis sucked in a breath and put one pale hand to his chest, as if wounded. “Oh my, I’m afraid you have it all quite wrong – we were sent to _rescue_ you! Those villains were going to murder you just like your mother, after they collected a ransom fee. But fortunately, Spymaster Burrows deduced the plot just in time for us to remove you from their clutches and bring you here, where hopefully those evil men will never find you.” He arched an eyebrow, creating deep creases along his high forehead. “Do you begin to see now, why it is so important that you remain safely hidden at the Golden Cat while murderers still prowl the streets?”

Emily thought about it. What the man had said made perhaps the tiniest smidgeon of sense… except…

“But what about Corvo? He tried to save us – I bet he’s out there right now looking for those men, and when he finds them –”

Custis suddenly stood up from the couch, his expression losing any attempt at nicety. _“That bloody Serk –”_

It was Morgan who stepped in this time, placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder. His voice was uncharacteristically solemn. “Can it be, girl? You really don’t know?”

Emily simply stared at him in confusion, and with a growing sense of dread at the pitying grimace that contorted his face.

“I’m afraid,” Morgan continued, “that the man we called Lord Protector has betrayed the Empire in the worst way possible. Corvo was the ringleader of the assassins who killed your mother – he arranged the whole thing, and planned it so that it would look like he was under attack as well. I’m sorry to tell you this – I know you were fond of the Lord Protector. You couldn’t have known.”

For a moment, no one spoke as the two brothers waited to see how the princess would take the news.

Then, after many seconds of pin-drop silence, Emily began to laugh.

For the first time since that day in the gazebo, she laughed, an honest-to-Strictures, doubled-over fit that sent tears rolling down her face.

When at last she regained her breath enough to speak, it was to say, “Now I _know_ you’re a bunch of liars! Corvo would never try to hurt me. I bet he’s coming here right now to save me, and then you two will be sorry!” The creepy twins could say whatever they wanted, and it might even sound reasonable, but she _knew_ Corvo, and she knew also that her mother had trusted him like no one else in the world. Emily felt a bit lighter inside at the solid reassurance.

Of course, the two men did not seem so thrilled… especially Custis, whose visage was growing stormier by the second.

“Could it be, brother, that the girl really is as clueless as she appears?”

“Indeed, my dear. I’m afraid she takes after that half-witted Serk when it comes to her intellect.”

“Perhaps, then, we shall need to find another method to impress upon her the importance of _staying put and following orders_. I would hate to see the poor child get caught wandering off again on her own, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, that would be simply _awful_ …”

The last traces of Emily’s good humor died away as she found herself faced with an identical set of fiendish glares.

“Why, Morgan, I do believe that the troublesome child reminds me a tiny bit of ourselves when we were younger, wouldn’t you agree?”

Morgan cast a sly glance at his twin. “Possibly so… I seem to recall a time or two when we may have strayed outside the lines of proper behavior for noble youth…”

“Indeed.” With a smirk, Custis strode casually over to a small but ornate chest that stood against the room’s left wall, next to the decorative table. He fished around in his coat pockets a bit, finally withdrawing a key. “But, lessons of the past are the wisdom of tomorrow, as Father used to say,” he drawled as he unlocked the small padlock on the chest, then eased the lid open. “Fortunately, I have _just_ the thing here to teach the unruly child a lesson about respecting her betters…”

The man reached inside the chest and then stood up slowly, dramatically, watching the girl’s face as he brought his hand up to reveal a gleaming, black-painted wooden paddle, with some kind of flowery design engraved on its flat, holed surface.

Emily felt her heart hammering in her chest, and she immediately turned to make a dash for the door – but Morgan’s vice-like grip was already clamping around her arm, stopping her flight.

She tried to yell, but Morgan began stuffing a handkerchief into her mouth, and she wanted to gag just from the awful taste of the thing as it was tied securely into place with another strip of fabric.

“Now then, cousin Emily, let me assure you that this will hurt you much more than it will me…” the dark-suited man grinned as he approached, adjusting his grip on the tool so that he held its black leather-bound handle in his right hand, freeing his left so that he could slap the wide surface of the paddle against it theatrically…

But as soon as the flat wood smacked against his open palm, the paddle splintered apart in two pieces and the engraved surface was sent spiraling haphazardly through the air, while Custis was left holding a broken handle.

He halted in his tracks. “What the _fuck?”_

Morgan bent down and picked up the severed piece of wood from where it had landed near his feet, observing the splintered edge. Up close, Emily could see that alongside the obvious damage from where it had broken, much of the rest of the paddle’s surface was marred by what appeared to be scrapings or teeth marks, particularly around its edges.

“Looks like a rat chewed up the damn thing,” Morgan noted.

Custis seemed to be at a loss. “But how…? It was perfectly fine last night, and it’s been locked up since then…”

His brother scowled. “These disgusting vermin are beyond ridiculous! I swear, if Madame Prudence doesn’t do _something_ about them already I’ll – I’ll – she’ll wish she had!”

Suddenly, the occupants of the room could hear a telltale squeaking sound from the general area of the fireplace.

“Aha!” Custis announced. “No rat makes a fool of _me_ and gets away with it!” He marched toward the fireplace, brandishing the splintered handle like a club. When he reached the hearth, he knelt down and began searching around the floor and inside the empty fireplace, trying to locate the source of the squeaking. “Get out here, vermin!” he commanded. “When I find you…”

It seemed that the rat was listening, for not a second later, its small white form dropped out of the chimney to land squarely on the back of Custis’ head, which was currently peering around the ash-coated floor of the fireplace.

Custis screamed, and chaos ensued.

Still yelling something unintelligible, Custis instinctively tried to stand up, only to collide with the mantle.

Meanwhile, the rat scampered from his head onto his back and then down to the floor, where it sat watching the man for a moment with its head tilted curiously, quite unconcerned by the human’s furious garbled cursing.

Custis finally clambered out of the fireplace and whirled around with an absolutely _murderous_ expression, made more impressive by the uneven coating of soot which now adorned his front side. He lifted the gleaming black handle in his hand and hurled it at the rat, but the creature avoided the throw easily.

Morgan finally let go of Emily to help his brother, picking up the nearest expensive-looking vase and throwing it at the little white rat, which once again scurried serenely out of harm’s path while the vase exploded into a thousand worthless shards.

“Wretched beast! I’ll skin you alive!” Custis shouted as he sent an ashtray flying across the room.

Now safely ignored, Emily worked on untying the gag from her mouth, spitting out the foul taste with enthusiasm. She meant to go for the door, but found herself strangely riveted by the show going on around her, as more and more objects – books, shoes, crystal figurines, a globe, a chair, a piece of brick from the fireplace, a glass of cider – sailed through the air, to land with unfailing accuracy in any spot not occupied by a rat. Meanwhile, the rat practically floated around the floor, stopping every now and then to stare with impassive black eyes at one person or another, which further seemed to infuriate the twins. Emily was quite positive by now – this white rat was her friend from before. She grinned at it, impressed.

Without warning, the door to the room suddenly burst open and a booming voice cut over the yelling and crashes.

_“What in the name of the Outsider’s black balls is going on in here!”_

The tall, crimson-headed form of Madame Prudence stalked into the room wearing a look of intense severity on her painted face, at which the chaos reluctantly began to die down.

Morgan hastily replaced a crystal flagon back on a shelf, while Custis, who was now barefoot, re-sheathed his sword, which had been halfway stabbed through the couch cushions. Of course these actions did nothing to hide the room’s state of destruction. Broken glass, busted pillows, and overturned furniture met the eye in every direction. The Madame seethed for a moment, taking it all in.

“Just. LOOK. _At this place, Custis!”_ she growled, immediately zeroing in on the source of trouble.

Custis somehow managed to look even more indignant than before. “It’s _Lord Pendleton!”_

With those three words, something clicked in Emily’s mind… memories of conversations between her mother and the royal protector, concerning things from long ago…

“Wait a minute,” she blurted out as the realization dawned. “ _You guys_ are the Lord Pendletwins?” It made so much sense, she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.

Custis made a strangled noise as Morgan glared at her.

“Now boys,” Madame Prudence cut in, her tone a simmering promise of retribution, “I appreciate that you are both well-paying regulars, but there had still better be a _damn good explanation_ for why my parlor has been wrecked.”

“It was the bloody rat’s fault!” Morgan answered without hesitation, waving his hand at where the furry creature had last been sitting…

The white rat was nowhere to be seen, of course.

The Madame crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.

“There was a rat, I swear it! The black-eyed bastard attacked both of us!”

Madame Prudence sucked in a deep breath and let it out very, very slowly.

“You are telling me,” she said quietly after a long moment, “that two grown men could not handle a single rat without trashing an entire chamber? … And the rat _still_ got the better of you? Any one of my girls would have killed the poor beast, and been done with it.”

“Is that so?” Custis seethed. “Because _we_ were getting the impression that you are all quite content to let the vermin have the run of the place.”

“Enough!” the Madame boomed. “Just know that I’m sending the bill for this spectacle directly to you, _Lord Pendleton_. And what in the Void is the girl down here for, anyhow? I thought I asked you to reprimand her, not take her to the bloody circus!”

“That is _precisely_ what we were attempting to do until we were interrupted by the little plague beast!” Morgan snapped.

“The child is stubborn,” Custis added, “but not entirely foolish, I think. She will learn, with the proper teaching, that it is for her own good that she must stay put upstairs.” His lips curved into a faint smile as he regarded the girl darkly. “Who knows _what_ she might run into down here, after all…”

Emily crossed her arms. “Yeah? Well just wait ’til Corvo finds you! You remember him, right? I heard he threw you out of the Tower once ’cause you were a rude obnoxious, uh, something, anyways he’s probably on his way here right now, so you’d better start acting nice!”

 _“Will you stop going on about the damned Serk already!”_ the nobleman roared. “I make _one comment_ that brings a pretty blush to Her Majesty’s face, and that fucking oaf thinks he can drag _me,_ Lord Custis Pendleton, out of a state dinner! Was he _actually_ raised by wolves?”

“I heard he tossed you out on your bum,” Emily added helpfully.

“That’s enough, all of you!” Madame Prudence interrupted before Custis could physically strangle the child. “Morgan, Custis, I believe you’ve done _more_ than enough damage here for one day – I don’t know why I ever thought the two of you could handle a child. Now, both of you, _out,_ and I don’t want to hear another word from either of you until the evening.”

“How _dare_ you talk to us in such a manner –”

Madame Prudence frowned severely. “I’m sorry Lord Pendleton, I didn’t quite catch that – you say you wish to pay double tonight for our services, to begin making amends for the destruction you’ve caused? Or was that triple?”

“… Come along, Morgan.”

The Lords Pendleton made an admirable effort at pretending that their dignity was not lying in tatters as they strode from the room, holding their backs rigidly straight and heads high. Emily stuck out her tongue as they left.

“And _you,”_ the Madame whirled on her as soon as the twins were gone, “such a spoiled, troublesome brat, I ought to be making you pay reparations as well. Don’t you know anything about the world, or is it all clouds and air in that pretty head of yours? Your precious Corvo won’t be coming here.”

“Yes he will!” Emily shouted back. “He’s the Lord Protector! He always finds me –”

“Not this time,” the Madame spat, folding her arms. “Unless you believe his spirit would come back from the Void just for your sake?”

Emily felt what little remained of her world begin to fall away. “What… what do you mean?” she breathed.

“Corvo’s dead, Emily. You won’t be seeing him again.”

She felt a hand grab at her arm just above the elbow, the same place Morgan had gripped it earlier, which felt slightly bruised. The pain seemed more real than anything else that was happening.

“He put a knife through the empress,” Madame Prudence continued, as she pulled the girl along after her through the door and back to the stairs leading to the attic, “and they chopped off his head for the crime. He was a traitor to the Empire, girl, and you’d best remember that.”

Emily let herself be pulled up the stairs in a daze, hardly processing the Madame’s words. It was just too… unreal…

“Hang on… Corvo didn’t… kill Mother!” she protested as part of the speech sank in. “I was there, I s-saw it happen… It was the man in red, Corvo tried to stop him!” It wasn’t true, what they kept saying about Corvo being a traitor, she _knew_ it couldn’t be… so maybe the rest of it wasn’t either…

Madame Prudence made a nonchalant noise. “Outsider’s eyes, you might even be right, though Corvo had a hand in the black deed sure enough. But just _think,_ girl – does it really matter now who held the knife? The empress and her dog are both long since cold as stone in their graves, and no amount of arguing over innocence can change that. You’ve had a soft life Dunwall Tower, always pampered and catered to, but here on the outside, life’s rough and unfair and that’s just the way it is. Better to learn that lesson early, if you ask me.”

They came to a halt on the top floor of the Golden Cat, just outside Emily’s room. Madame Prudence took a moment to look the child over, and Emily found no sympathy in her wrinkled hazel eyes; but nor was there anger, or malice. Only weariness… And that somehow made it worse.

“Alright then, get in there,” the woman said at last, half-dragging the child through the doorway before finally letting go of her arm. “And this time you’ll stay put if you know what’s good for you. That damn fool Corvo is dead, never mind if he deserved it, and Void knows no one else is going to save you if you get lost in the streets. And if I ever catch you roaming about again, so help me I will padlock this door. Do you understand me?”

Emily forced herself to nod, not trusting her voice. The Madame grunted and finally swung the door shut; Emily listened to the sharp sound of her heeled boots retreating into the distance, until at last… silence.

Her feet carried her back to the familiar spot where she so often sat, colored, dreamed of days long past… Numbly, she slid down the wall and hugged her knees.

_Corvo is dead._

_Mother is dead, and now Corvo is…_

“No!” Her shout was half-strangled by the lump that had formed in her throat, and she took a deep, ragged breath. _“It’s not true it’s not true it’s not true it’s not true…”_ The whispered chant was as much an invocation as an attempt at reassurance, and it did nothing to stop the fear from rushing through her and settling in her chest, making it harder to breathe.

 _The Madame is lying,_ she told herself furiously, _she doesn’t know what she’s talking about…_ But unbidden images of a gleaming steel blade stabbing through her mother’s gut filled her mind’s eye, and it was all she could do not to scream… Death had suddenly become all too plausible for the young heir.

*~*~*~*~*

A short time later, a white rat poked its head into the room from a crack in the wall near the door. Upon seeing a girl huddled with her knees drawn up in the corner, face buried in her arms, the rat slid the rest of the way into the room and then scurried across the floor to regard her curiously, sniffing at her ankles.

Emily started and lifted her head at the feel of the cold nose poking her leg. Despite the tears that stained her face, a smile lifted her features at the sight of her new companion. “It’s you!” she exclaimed with a sniffle, and reached out to scoop up the small creature in her arms.

The rat gave a loud squeak of surprised protest at being held, but couldn’t quite manage to wriggle its way free. Finally it gave up and drooped resignedly in Emily’s clutches as she hugged the small animal like a lifeline. “Oh rat, it’s awful! They’re saying that Corvo’s d-dead…”

The rat gave a longsuffering swish of its tail, preparing itself to be held captive at length…


	5. Oracle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline: post-game (Low Chaos)  
> Location: Dunwall Tower

“Elbows _off the table!”_ Sister Louisa urged through gritted teeth, for at least the sixth or seventh time that afternoon.

Emily slipped her elbow off the table with a huff of annoyance. She would just forget again in a few minutes, and Sister Louisa’s blood pressure seemed to rise every time this happened. All these silly, useless rules about etiquette! If being empress meant you had to follow even more rules than everybody else, then what was the point?

At least the Sister seemed mollified for now. She turned back to the astrological chart propped on an easel beside her chair, angled so that Emily had a good view of it from the head of the table. Since the Sister was draped from head to toe in a long white robe and cowl, Emily couldn’t see her face at all unless they were looking directly at each other… for which Emily was grateful.

The extra set of eyes tattooed in vivid blue ink onto the woman’s face, just below her real ones, made her pointed stares unfairly intimidating.

“Now, as we were discussing,” the Sister continued, after a dainty sip of her tea. Emily had already downed two cups – they were so tiny! – and needed rather badly to run to the privy, but evidently it was considered rude to interrupt a Sister of the Oracular Order for such matters. Although, the young empress felt that being forced to go against nature for this long ought to be considered heresy of the gravest degree.

“… There are certain times of the year when the alignment of the heavenly bodies can influence our perception of the cosmic veil, either clarifying or obscuring our vision. Can you tell me which month is the best time to seek guidance on matters affecting the political state?”

“Obviously not Earth,” muttered Emily, glancing at the toes of her shiny black shoes.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” asked Sister Louisa sharply, lifting one of her clean-shaved eyebrow ridges.

“Nothing,” replied Emily sweetly, gazing up with large, innocent brown eyes. “Um… the Month of Hearths?”

“And why is this?” the Sister prompted. Surprised that her guess had apparently been correct, Emily hazarded an explanation.

“Uh… because it’s too cold, so everybody has time to sit around indoors and make treaties and have fancy dinners and stuff?” That sounded plausible, right?

Or perhaps not.

The Sister slapped her palm flat on the table, rattling the tea cups in their saucers.

“If Her Majesty does not see fit to complete her assigned reading in the time between our lessons, she must at least have the dignity to say so instead of coming up with these wild fabrications!”

Emily suddenly became very absorbed in tracing the pattern carved into the table’s edge with her fingertips.

Sister Louisa sighed heavily. “The correct answer, which you would have found in Chapter Four of the _Book of Changes_ , is the Month of Winds. _Not_ Hearths.”

She reached out with one long arm to grasp her staff, which had been propped against the wall behind her seat. The religious tool was, Emily had to admit, a curious implement. Its long wooden shaft was capped at both ends with a silvery metal, and the top end tapered to a wicked-looking point. Right below this tip there was a metal loop, where several loose rings of the same metal dangled, chiming softly whenever the staff moved. The young empress-turned-pupil remembered vaguely that the sound of the rings was meant as a warning to evil spirits, or something…

But for now, the staff would serve merely as a pointer. Sister Louisa tapped the metal tip against the section of the astrological chart devoted to the Month of Winds, glancing back to make sure that her student was still paying attention before she spoke.

“During this time, the star Cù leads the Wolfhound across the southern sky, chasing away the encroaching darkness of the cosmos from that direction. The appearance of this constellation also marks the beginning of the Woven Procession and the six-week observation of the shifting hues of Cù, which will serve as a guide for determining legal policies in the forthcoming term… _Your Majesty, am I boring you?”_

Emily sat up straight at the sudden change in tone, dropping her pen with a small splatter of ink.

Despite Callista’s fervent warnings, Sister Louisa had insisted that Emily be provided with a sheaf of parchment and pens to take notes during the lecture – something about how “the spiritual education of an empress is not a subject to be considered lightly,” which apparently meant she had to write stuff down or she wasn’t taking it seriously.

Well, Emily _was_ taking her education seriously! It just so happened that doodling wolfhound puppies helped her to concentrate better.

Or at least it guaranteed that she stayed awake. That ought to be a plus in any teacher’s view. Evidently, Sister Louisa felt otherwise.

Emily put on her most attentive expression and tried to shuffle the offending sketch behind a blank sheet of paper as inconspicuously as possible, feeling the Sister’s literal four-eyed stare burning into her as she did so. As this was accomplished, they both heard a rapping at the door.

“Pardon the intrusion, I’ve just brought a fresh pot of tea,” murmured Callista as she entered, pushing the study door closed behind her. Emily had rarely been so relieved to see the woman as she was then.

Corvo was also right outside the study, she knew, standing attentively at his post. Often, the Lord Protector attended her lessons in-person, sitting unobtrusively in a corner and making funny faces behind the teacher’s back. But for some reason, he was very reluctant to go anywhere nearer Sister Louisa than was absolutely necessary.

Emily was beginning to think she could understand the sentiment.

 _“Thank_ you, dear Callista.” Sister Louisa leaned her staff against the wall and turned back to the table, clasping her tea cup delicately with both hands.

As Callista approached the table, carrying a blue ceramic teapot emblazoned with gold swans, she caught Emily’s eye and lifted an eyebrow in a silent query; Emily smiled painfully in return. The woman sighed and shook her head slightly, as if to say, _What did I expect?_

“If Your Majesty will permit, I will serve our guest the first cup,” she announced, ever decorous, as if there was any question who would be served first with the tea-pourer hovering right over the cowled Sister’s shoulder. At Emily’s go-ahead, she filled Sister Louisa’s cup, then continued down the table to Emily’s chair. Emily hastily shoved a protruding corner of her sketch out of sight, but not fast enough to avoid Callista’s suspicious look.

“Taking diligent notes, I trust,” the woman remarked in a tone that suggested exactly the opposite, as she lifted the teapot and prepared to pour. Emily was first annoyed, then slightly scandalized when she realized that this remark had been aimed more at Sister Louisa than herself, going by the snide glance Callista shot the woman.

Sister Louisa presumably did not see this glance from behind her cowl, but she seemed to pick up on Callista’s tone well enough. “Indeed,” she concurred calmly. “After all, it would be quite _shameful_ if a lady of such high position was never trained to focus properly on her lessons.”

Callista’s russet-colored eyes widened almost imperceptibly; to Emily, it was as if she had thrown down one of her black gloves. Distracted by this exchange, Emily hardly noticed the extra bit of weight that suddenly appeared in her jacket pocket…

 _“Well,”_ replied Callista, as she finally began to pour Emily’s tea – the empress was a bit concerned, Callista wasn’t even looking at the cup – “perhaps so, but one must also acknowledge the role of the instructor. After all, even the most esteemed pupil cannot be expected to retain new knowledge if the teacher is a tiresome prattler, wouldn’t you agree?”

While Callista spoke, piping hot tea began to pour from the spout of the teapot, and Emily quickly moved her cup to catch it. However, the tea evidently had other plans. Instead of filling her cup, a steady stream of amber liquid rose straight up toward the ceiling. Emily watched with huge round eyes as the tea, like a reverse waterfall, splashed against the ceiling in a cloud of steam.

Neither of the adult women noticed it just then, too caught up in their strangely intense conversation.

“That is a _possibility_ , however unlikely,” Sister Louisa was saying. She had not yet moved to sip her own tea, her posture rigid, still holding out the cup between both hands, even though the thin porcelain had to be burning hot. “But the wisdom of the Abbey has shown that the _proper_ training of the child in all aspects of life is the most critical factor in preparing her for the rigors of advanced philosophical pursuits… Surely you… you…”

Sister Louisa had finally turned her head toward Callista.

The tea cup slipped from her hands, spilling hot liquid all over the polished tabletop and onto her pristine white robe.

Callista glanced down reflexively to see what had upset the Sister – and nearly dropped the teapot when she saw what was happening. But somehow she managed to keep her grip on the thing, and set it down quickly, putting an end to the bizarre spectacle.

Then she brought up her left hand, closed her eyes and began massaging her temples, and Emily barely caught her whisper: _“Not again…”_

By now, Emily had gotten past her initial shock enough to have a fair guess at what was going on; and so, finally noticing the weight in her left jacket pocket as something shifted its position there, she was not really surprised when a familiar white rat poked its head up inquisitively, sniffing the air. The small creature chattered softly, giving Emily the distinct impression of laughter…

“Mr. Templeton!” she exclaimed as it wriggled free of her pocket. The rat seemed quite keen on investigating whatever was on the tabletop, for it stood up on Emily’s knee and began scrabbling with its forepaws to get a grip on the table’s edge, trying to pull itself up.

“I thought we agreed about this!” whispered Callista furiously. “You were not to bring that – that _creature_ to your lessons – _especially_ not with –” the woman cut herself off abruptly with a harried glance at Sister Louisa across the table.

“But I didn’t!” Emily whispered back. The rat had finally managed its goal, and was now ambling casually toward a tray of cakes in the middle of the table. “He just shows up sometimes! He can’t help it if he’s curious!” She crossed her arms, mildly indignant on Mr. Templeton’s behalf.

 _“Can’t help it –”_ Callista sputtered. Then her eyes grew wide as she saw the rat saunter directly in front of Sister Louisa’s field of vision. “Void help us all,” she breathed, backing away slowly.

The Sister had not moved since spilling her tea cup – Emily could not help feeling impressed, not to mention worried, she _knew_ that tea had been scalding hot.

But the small furry creature with the weird eyes and wispy shadows had now made its way almost directly in front of the woman, and was settling down to nibble at the tray of iced cakes across from her. It was angled so that the Sister remained in its field of vision… Emily almost swore for a second that she saw it grin at the woman.

Sister Louisa snapped out of her frozen state with startling speed.

 _“Dark spirit!”_ she screeched – just a louder version of her scolding voice, really. She stood up so fast that her chair toppled over with a crash, yanking back her cowl as she did.

Emily’s jaw dropped.

The Sister’s head was shaven so completely bald that it gleamed in the lantern-light; her eyebrows, too.

Actually, on closer inspection, there was a good reason for the gleam: an overseer’s symbol was etched in gold high on her forehead.

She snatched her staff from its place against the wall, wielding it in front of her in a martial pose. The rat stared up at her with interest, tea cakes momentarily forgotten. Emily felt torn between a nagging concern for her friend, and elation at the spectacle that her lesson had devolved into.

“Begone, demon!”

The metal tip of the staff rose high into the air… then swept down in a wide arc so fast that it became a silver blur, to strike the center of the table. Bits of spongy cake and lemon icing were sent flying across the room as the staff sheared through the sweets.

Emily gasped involuntarily, hardly noticing the splatter of icing that landed on her cheek. But her worry turned to relief when she caught a glimpse of a long, pinkish tail disappearing from view underneath the table near the Sister’s feet.

Sister Louisa retrieved her staff with a severe frown at the absence of squashed rat, but this only seemed to boost her determination. “Foul beast, you cannot hide from one of the Sighted Sisters!”

Apparently the rat agreed, because it didn’t make much of an effort at hiding. As Sister Louisa’s sharp gaze scanned the study, they all heard a pattering of tiny feet, and then –

The rat came back into view climbing the wall opposite Sister Louisa – running straight up as if it were a floor instead of a vertical surface.

Sister Louisa let out an angry shriek, leaped on top of the table in a single bound, hefted her staff like a spear and began stabbing at the creature. The rat responded by moving in a chaotic zigzag pattern instead of a straight beeline, nimbly avoiding the weapon. Several times it actually jumped, always landing back on the wall rather than obeying gravity. The staff’s pointed tip plunged repeatedly into the wood paneling of the study wall, and each missed strike was punctuated by an angry shout.

Emily felt Callista grab her shoulders and pull her back into the far corner of the room.

Despite its wild route, the rat eventually made it far enough to scamper onto the ceiling. This hardly put the creature out of range of the agile Sister, but it was also the gravest slap-in-the-face yet to the rule of order, natural philosophy, common sense, and everything else that the good Sister stood for.

Rather than stabbing madly at the ceiling – Callista breathed a sigh of relief – the Sister stared up a moment at the rat, which stared back at her, upside-down, tilting its head from side to side and making small chirping sounds that Emily was quite sure were laughter.

The Sister exhaled slowly, regaining a measure of calm. She hopped lightly off the table but kept an eye on the rat, turning to face it. Her posture straightened and she brought the staff in front of her, holding it vertically with both hands.

This time when she spoke, her tone was much more composed as she fell into some kind of chant. “Spirits who roam over the earth and beneath it, hear me now!” She slowly raised her staff. “The voice of the Abbey calls you!” The metal rings chimed loudly as she shook the staff.

The rat blinked a few times, but otherwise appeared unconcerned with this turn of events. In fact it let go of the ceiling completely, floating down a few inches to hover in midair. Sister Louisa narrowed her eyes.

“The eyes of the Seers discern you!” She shook the staff again.

The rat flinched a bit at the sound, but that was all. It flipped over onto its back and began to drift casually through the air.

“The music of the stars compels you! _Begone from this realm!”_ she shouted, and the staff chimed again, even more loudly than before.

This time, as the clanging of the metal rings lingered and slowly started to fade, Emily sensed that something was different about the sound. It almost felt like a faint electric current had run through the air…

The rat froze, and all the fur of its hackles stood up straight. The dark curls of shadow that always seemed to trail after it had become faint, almost invisible… Its head swiveled to stare at Sister Louisa, who now wore a smug smile.

Without warning, the creature let out a squeak of alarm, and dropped from the air.

Right before it hit the table, the creature’s body suddenly dissolved into a weird black mist that quickly evaporated out of sight, like candle smoke.

Sister Louisa lowered her staff and set it back against the wall. She seemed none the worse for her adventure; if anything, she was glowing with triumph.

“Your Majesty,” she began, reaching down to pick up her discarded cowl, “I must apologize for the interruption to our session. I _do_ hope that we will be able to pick up the lesson –”

A knock at the door cut her off.

“Your Majesty, Sister Louisa, I’m afraid it’s time –”

Corvo nearly choked on his own words as he poked his head into the room, and took in the sights: overturned easel and chairs, a puddle of tea, splatters from what appeared to be a cake fight all over the room, a wall which had evidently been subjected to target practice, Sister Louisa not wearing her cowl…

“What… what has happened here?” he asked, utterly bewildered. At least Emily and Callista were clearly unharmed.

Sister Louisa noted his paled complexion, and adopted her best preaching voice. “Do not fear, Lord Protector, the danger has passed. It seems that a lesser earth spirit was trying to prevent me from instructing our empress in the ways of prudence, but I have banished the dark being back into the Abyss where it belongs.”

“It. Was. _Awesome!”_ Emily exclaimed, breaking free of Callista’s grip to run up to the Sister. Her eyes were alight with excitement and she gestured wildly. “She was all over the place! Sister Louisa, do you think you could you teach _me_ to do that stuff?”

The Sister looked thoughtful for a moment. “Hmm… this sort of thing _is_ an occupational hazard for those of us on the frontlines of the Abbey’s work… I suppose it would be useful to provide you with a measure of training in the art of the _bata.”_

Emily cheered and pumped her fist in the air. She did refrain from jumping, however… not wanting to disturb the familiar weighted lump that had mysteriously reappeared in her jacket pocket some minutes earlier.

As both Emily and Sister Louisa swept past Corvo into the hallway, discussing a time for Emily’s next lesson, the lord protector shot a helpless glance at Callista. The woman folded her arms.

“And just what in the _Void_ were you doing out there all this time?” she demanded crossly, keeping her voice to a loud whisper.

Corvo shrugged. “I didn’t hear a thing!” he insisted, shaking his head as if emphasizing the point to himself. “I did, er…” He hesitated, covering the back of his left hand with his right; Callista nodded at him to go on. “Well, I did look through the wall a bit… but I saw nothing out of the ordinary! It looked like you were all just sitting at the table…”

Callista gave him a flat look. _“Obviously._ Well, might I just ask, Lord Protector, that the next time you run into your… _sponsor_ … you give him a message from me?”

She was glaring daggers at the back of his left hand; Corvo could almost feel it burning.

“I’ll let you choose whether it’s a punch to his face or a kick in his black unmentionables.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sister Louisa's staff is based on a khakkhara, which I recommend searching on wikipedia if you're not familiar with it! Also, the Book of Changes is based loosely on the I Ching; the names "Cù" and "bata" are taken from Irish; the Wolfhound constellation is based on Canis Major. I had a lot of fun coming up with headcanon-y stuff for this chapter, so just wanted to share in case anyone's curious :)


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